Wright, Lieutenant William Jonathan

Service highlights

  • Born 14 November 1874 in Zorra Township, Ontario.
  • Moved to St. Marys in 1878
  • Graduated from St. Marys Collegiate, earned a BA and MA at University College, University of Toronto, and was a gold medallist in Classics
  • Work: Principal of St. Marys Collegiate Institute
  • Active in the Presbyterian Church and involved in a local History Club study group
  • Joined the local militia, the 28th (Perth) Regiment, 4 January 1916
  • Attested with the 110th (Perth) Canadian Infantry Battalion at Stratford, 5 May 1916
  • Sent to England for training, 23 August 1916, then to France, joining the 19th Canadian Infantry Battalion on 31 October 1916
  • Rank: Lieutenant
  • Died: 18 August 1917 during a German counter attack at Chicory Trench, north of Lens
  • Buried at Fosse Number 10 Communal Cemetery Extension, Sains en Gohelle, France
  • Commemorated with a memorial plaque at St. Marys District Collegiate and Vocational Institute, and remembered on the University of Toronto Virtual War Memorial and the cenotaph in St. Marys

A Life and Service Remembered

William Jonathan Wright’s life was rooted in learning, faith, and service to his community. After his father’s death in his early childhood, his family settled in St. Marys, where he grew into an exceptional student and scholar. He carried that love of learning into a teaching career, and eventually back home, taking on the responsibility of principal at St. Marys Collegiate Institute. In a small town, a principal is not just an educator, but a steady presence in countless young lives. Wright’s work suggests a man who believed in shaping people with patience and purpose, not just teaching subjects.

His family’s ties to St. Marys ran deep. His older brother, Charles C. Wright, operated a planing mill at the corner of Church and Station Streets, the same place where the Legion Branch 236 stands today. It is a striking connection, a reminder that the places we gather now sit on top of older stories, and that names on a cenotaph once belonged to neighbours who walked these same streets.

When he joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Wright was already established and respected, with a life of service behind him. Yet he chose to step into a very different kind of duty. He trained as an officer, crossed the Atlantic, and joined a fighting battalion in France. He served first as an infantry officer and later with the 4th Trench Mortar Battery, work that demanded endurance, calm under pressure, and a willingness to stand in exposed positions that would draw heavy fire. During a German counter attack at Chicory Trench, north of Lens on August 18th, his luck ran out and he was killed on the battlefield. After his death, his battery commander wrote that if Wright had survived the attack, he would have been recommended for the Military Cross. It is a brief sentence, but it carries weight, recognition of courage noticed in the moment by those who were there.

Wright left behind his wife, Mary Edith Robertson, and their three children, Dorothy, William, and Marjory, as well as his mother, Emma Wright, and extended family. His headstone bears a line chosen by his wife: “He died the noblest death a man may die.” At home, staff and students ensured his name would not fade, creating a plaque in his honor that still remains a visible reminder that the cost of war reached directly into the classrooms of the school he loved so much. Years later the letters he sent home would be preserved in an exhibit at the St. Marys Library to help visitors who didn’t know him to reflect on the real cost of freedom.

Major battles and operations

  • The Somme, trench service with the 19th Canadian Infantry Battalion after arriving in France in late 1916
  • Vimy Ridge, 9 April 1917, advancing with the 19th Battalion in the first wave and capturing part of the German intermediate position known as the Zwischen Stellung
  • Front line trench mortar operations with the 4th Trench Mortar Battery, 4th Brigade, from May to August 1917
  • Lens sector, Chicory Trench, 18 August 1917, killed in action during a German counter attack after the trench had been captured the previous day by the Canadian Corps

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